Rediscovering the
power of pop

Today I am in a state of mini-euphoria. This is not because I have
won the lottery, or that I have gotten that long-awaited call from the Nobel
Prize committee. It is instead because I received a copy of Maroon5’s Songs
about Jane.

It is no secret,
dear friends, that music is one of the pillars of my life. I have a large
collection of CDs, and I have few waking moments where I am not listening to my
MP3 player or stereo. Music provides not just an outlet for the anguished soul;
it also provides a rhythm against which to frame one’s own actions, thoughts
and proclivities. I speak here not just of lyrics, but also of rhythms and
tunes. Music is a veritable tapestry that can act as a backdrop to life’s
mysterious and unscripted twists and turns. It can provide a vent for one’s
tangled feelings, and solutions to the smorgasbord of questions that lady
Fortuna springs upon us. It gives one a chance to gauge one’s own life against
that of the songwriter, poet, or composer. It validates one’s existence,
suggesting to the listener: your conundrums are not unique: there are others
who have come by here before, sunk into the quagmire and survived to sing or
compose about it. You are not alone.

For these are the feelings that first led me to music. As a teenager
I had the usual existential uncertainties until I discovered Franz Kafka,
amphetamines and John Lennon. Of relevance here is the last on this list.
Discovering the lyrics of Lennon helped shape my life. I realised that while I
was a little on the weird side, I was not completely whacko. That I was not
condemned to bounce of padded walls because there had been others before me
faced with the same challenges who had not only survived, but had survived
spectacularly. I do not exaggerate when I say that I came to the rather useful
conclusion that I was not, after all, on a one way road to suicide.

But my tastes have not stayed locked in a time warp. I am no snob
when it comes to variety or genre. My interests are diverse: the only things I
categorically refuse listen to are opera and Gloria Estefan.

I have had a sinking feeling over the last year that pop music had
no future. There have been few great songs in the last two years. A few had
foot-tapping appeal, plus a little humming of the single tune that had made it
on to the charts. However, after just a brief period these few too felt and
sounded rather predictable. Semi-competent musicians with sickly-sweet lyrics
that were designed to sell, seeking out the lowest common denominator on the
intelligence and taste scale.

Many have shown promise, only to disappoint when the entire album
was acquired. Amongst this number have been such promising young musicians as
Pink, Eminem, P. Diddy, Dido, Macy Gray, Robbie Williams, Gwen Steffanie. It is
for this reason that my tastes have moved – in despair - to an increasing preference
for classical jazz, hip-hop and blues.

It is not that Maroon5 enjoy great instrumental talent –there are no
heartbreakingly beautiful performances that mark the work of artists for whom a
guitar is like a paintbrush to an artist, rather than a prop for a music video.

Despite this,
Maroon5 have saved themselves from the annoying monotony of using variations
the same tune to lay down several tracks which is the only saving grace of a
host of singers too long to mention here. It is not always necessary for great
songs to have great tunes: witness the success of hip-hop and rap, which
utilise the same fundamental beats supported by the creative use of sampling
and potent lyrics. Indeed, hip-hop appeared until now to be the last refuge of
the songwriter-poet, where important and significant nuances about life, love
and pain were melded together to tell a powerful story. Indeed, recently, the
only people outside hip-hop that have shown any promise in this area have been
Christian Aguilera, Nelly, Babyface, and Alicia Keys.

And this is what Maroon 5 have done. They have put together a
powerful collection of songs (with the exception of one, which begins
disappointingly with what sounds like one of Robbie Williams’ outtakes. It
fortunately picks up immediately after) with heartfelt lyrics that show a
maturity of emotion merged with a youthful exuberance, told with genuine sense
of artistic dramatism. But not over-doing it with sickly-sweetness and happy
endings, they have ended each song without repeating the catchiest bits overly
so.

Another thing that jumps out at the listener is the fact that the
songs are built solidly around a ‘theme’ or ‘concept’. However, it is not a
concept album in the sense of any of Pink Floyd’s work, U2’s rattle and hum,
or Christina’s stripped. These are albums where the order of play is
just as important as the songs themselves. Instead, it is in the sense that
each song belongs with the others, in a sense of continuity of theme, for Jane,
whoever she is, is portrayed in all her emotional, physical and social
(im)perfection, as is the songwriter/poet. One feels the anguish of Mr Maroon,
his bipolarity towards Jane, her entrancing persona, and the helplessness of
the force of their chemistry and the power of the feelings which she stirs in
the poet. This is an album where the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.

It has renewed my faith in the creative spirit that defined pop
music. It has affirmed that there is hope for the world at large, that the
sense of empathy, emotion, angst and expression of the human spirit have not
been completely repressed because occasionally, something good does get by the
demonic gatekeepers that are today’s large recording companies.

Thank you, Maroon5 (and the
anonymous donor of the album) for confirming that there remains hope, and that
global capitalism has not completely managed to annihilate the redeeming
qualities of pop music.